humor

If you work in the business world, E-mail is undoubtedly a big part of your life. Yet few of us who rely on E-mail as a mode of communication even took a course in its proper use. Below are some tips for you to improve your digital messages and ensure that your electronic correspondence fosters good relations rather than hard feelings.
   1. In an E-mail message, never say anything about someone else that you would not want that person to see. Keep in mind that E-mail message can be forwarded to anybody by the recipient. Therefore, never say anything in an E-mail that you would be embarrassed to have read back to you.
   2. Get the most out of your subject line. Remember that aside from your name, the subject line of your E-mail message is the first thing that a recipient will read. So it pays to take some time to think about your subject line.
   3. Do use commonly accepted standards of manners in all E-mail messages that you send. Avoid using all capital letters in your messages, which may well give one the impression that you are screaming.  In addition, be careful about any use of sarcasm or humor in your E-mail messages. In writing, both sarcasm and humor can easily be misinterpreted.
   4. Before sending an E-mail message, consider whether E-mail is the most effective form of communication for your purpose. In business settings E-mail is best used to convey key information, to confirm appointments, to document decisions, or to contact a decision-maker directly.
   Avoid using an E-mail message to begin a conversation that likely will require input from several people at the same time unless the decision-making process should be documented. At last, remember the value of face-to-face conversation.